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Painting, as the famous Pablo Picasso sound bite goes, is another way of keeping a diary. However, making that “diary” legible, he might well have added, all comes down to how art is hung throughout a home.

Placing a picture in too tight a space, experts explain, may mean you are not able to “read” its incredible horizon, for example. Arranging a group of pictures frenetically might leave your eye unable to focus.

So before you put anything on the walls, it’s worth remembering that the very act of collecting art is your way of presenting your own journey, your own diary, according to Evelyn Sum of Farmboy Fine Arts, a Gastown-based consultancy that furnishes myriad hotels and establishments with art worldwide.

“What is really interesting about art,” the art director says, “is the story behind it: Where the concept for the piece originated and if that story resonates with you and touches you in some way. The important thing is, this is about your story, things that you have collected over the years or things you have encountered in your experiences or travels.”

Which is why she is not keen on a linear collection of pictures. Mixing things to reflect that journey, she suggests, adds character. “I would never group all black and whites or all colour together,” she continues. “Personally, I like it as random as possible. Definitely mix two mediums – such as photography with original paintings – with everything evenly spaced out between them.”

For Jennifer Kostuik, who runs her eponymous gallery in Yaletown, one way to frame such a grouping is to cut brown paper to the same size as your artwork, then stick the paper to the wall temporarily so you can move it around until it looks good. When you’re ready to hang the piece and you’ve “created an outside square or rectangle and filled inside with the work, then that’s where you will put it,” she adds.

A handy guide could be the length of the sofa or bed, if the feature wall is behind it. “I like to frame it out to align with the furnishings,” says Sum. “Start with a main piece of art that’s colourful or perhaps bigger than the others, and place it above the centre of the piece of furniture. Then box the smaller pieces around it so that the whole gallery lines up with the widest part of the furniture. I don’t ever like to go beyond it.”

Sum’s most recent take on this popular grouping method is on display in two of the suites at the newly restored Rosewood Hotel Georgia, which worked with Farmboy Fine Arts to launch the sizable collection peppered throughout the establishment. (Mainly Canadian art, it notably features Jack Shadbolt, Douglas Coupland and Rodney Graham, but also Britain’s Damien Hirst.) Her salon-style arrangements of archival prints of the city (some by photographer Fred Herzog) and small oil paintings of Emily Carr University alumna Kathy Zhang flow up the Rosewood and Lord Stanley staircases. The art director warns, however, that working in these area is tricky. “The sightline of the pictures is so close so you don’t want anything that is too big generally or that’s a large figurative piece,” she continues. “If it’s abstract, it might not really matter, but if it’s photography, you want it to be small scale.”

Beyond groupings, the main art piece can be the most exciting to hang, Kostuik suggests. A painting with a single point of perspective might be best positioned in a spot where you want to open up the space of a room or provide a centre or a focal point. “Above a fireplace, the centre of a dining area or end of a hallway all work well because these are the types of works you can see from far away and they will lead you into the room and help to centre the space,” she adds. “Large pieces can really set the mood of the room.” Similar to her take on groupings, Sum thinks works hung above fireplaces should not go beyond the mantel. “And I wouldn’t want it to necessarily be the same shape as the fireplace – I like to try linear, small pieces that might form a triptych or a quad,” she muses.

Two general rules apply. Firstly, it is worth using two D rings to hang the frame, says Kostuik, whose career representing artists from the U.S., Japan, Europe and across Canada has spanned two decades. “Hanging things on wire means it’s likely to move, and sometimes it will even snap because the picture is too heavy,” she adds.

Both experts also point out the universal figure of 55 inches from the ground to the centre of the perspective. “But, of course, some people are tall, some are short – so mostly when I hang art I hang it a little low,” suggests Kostuik. “If you hang it too high it becomes too monumental – this thing that you are looking up at. It ruins the horizon-lines feeling too.” (If the picture is flat – or without a perspective – “then you can hang it wherever because there is no horizon line,” she points out.)

Obviously, much common sense applies. “If an art piece is 10 feet you won’t necessarily have the centre of the art piece a neat 55 inches at the centre,” says Sum, who thinks leaning pieces against walls can be “kind of interesting.” (Depending on your wall, naturally occurring wood veneers and mouldings may be utilized “as extra framing,” Sum adds.)

Hanging art, of course, can be as personal as the art itself. “Sometimes it all depends on what you want to say about yourself and your art,” she says. “It’s what is comfortable to you.” And rules can be happily broken in Kostuik’s world, too. “If you have lots of art and absolutely no more space to hang it,” she laughs, “then you should just put it up wherever.”

For further inspiration, visit the Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, 1070 Homer Street (604-737 3969) and the Rosewood Hotel Georgia (801 West Georgia Street, 604-682 5566), which has a self-guided art tour. (Collect maps of the artworks from the concierge.) Farmboy Fine Arts can be reached via farmboyfinearts.com.

Special to The Sun

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